The dungeons of Castle Gygar

UUUH!

Lookout! It's a Zombie!

At the close of the last session, the brave adventurers had withdrawn to a clearing up a wooded slope to the west of Castle Gygar. They stopped for in or about an hour to scoff some rations and rest for a bit. Having re-charged their batteries the party set off with a renewed sense of purpose back down the slope towards Castle Gygar.

Reaching the gap in the outside wall, the party swiftly made their way across the inner courtyard littered with fallen blocks and columns representing the remains of the upper storeys of the castle. Stepping through the entrance doors, the party decide to try their luck by heading east this time. Lighting a torch they enter the east hall and see a room containing little but the remains of some chairs and a table. There is a fireplace in the north wall and Teelia the fighter goes to investigate. Teelia’s searching disturbs a quantity of fallen timbers jammed up the chimney breast and there is a rumble as those timbers are dislodged and fall down the chimney! At this point Teelia makes a saving throw against wands which she passes, luckily for her, and manages to throw herself aside, still losing a hit point in the process. Upon resuming their search of the fireplace, they find a loose brick concealing a silver dagger. As usual, Norri knows a guy……

The party continue to the east passing through an empty doorway into a storage room full of boxes and crates of all sizes and shapes. The party start to search through the boxes. Suddenly, they notice that Simba appears to be unhappy with something and is sniffing at a long box at the bottom of a pile of boxes in the centre of the room. Elric goes to investigate and opens the box. An unpleasant surprise awaits as a Zombie concealed within stands stiffly up and takes a swipe at Elric with his rusty sword!

At the start of this encounter the Zombie gained surprise and consequently had a free swing at Elric. Happily the zombie showed all the clumsiness they are known for and missed completely. Elric called to Teelia asking her to throw her torch to him and she does so freeing up her hands to draw out her two handed sword. Elric successfully passes a dexterity check, catching the thrown torch successfully. Norri unhooks his murderous hand axe and gets ready for action. The zombie swings again and misses.

In the next round, Elric rolls on behalf of himself and Norri and they gain initiative. Teelia is left out of this as she is wielding a two handed sword. Elric connects with the flaming torch doing damage to the unclean fiend who lets out a dismal moan. Norri hits the zombie with his trusty axe severing the creature’s left arm at the shoulder. Yet another dismal moan issues forth. The creature strikes ineffectually and finally Teelia administers the coup the grace striking the Zombie’s head from it’s shoulders. The DM started to imitate the zombie’s moans at that point and was told by Elric’s young player to stop as he was afraid of getting nightmares!

After all that the party are then nonplussed when it proves that the storage room is entirely devoid of anything of value! They press on through the north doorway into a small corridor-like room heading to the west. Holding aloft her torch, Teelia can just about make out the far extreme of the room and there seems to be movement within. Suddenly, the party hear a now familiar sound, “UUUUUH!” This time, however, it is in stereo and four zombies lurch into the torchlight in all their ghastliness.

At this point Teelia had to quit for the evening and the DM was asked to simply “freeze-frame” the action, rather than compel the characters to spend time locating a fresh clearing nearby. The DM agreed but could not stifle a groan that came to his lips, like so; UUUUUUH!